";s:4:"text";s:1646:" A wide-mouthed, insect-eating summer visitor to heathlands and young conifer plantations, they spend their days sitting on the floor, where they also nest. They have an almost supernatural reputation with their silent flight and their mythical ability to steal milk from goats. With pointed wings and a long tails their shape is similar to a kestrel or cuckoo.
Nightjars are inactive by day, well hidden by their cryptic plumage patterns, but become active at dusk, when their strange calls and songs may be heard. Some believe that flapping a white handkerchief in the air at night will attract male nightjars.
Arriving here in April and May from its wintering grounds in Africa, the nightjar nests on the ground on heathland and in young conifer woods. Did you know? Amazingly well camouflaged, the nightjar is most easily spotted at dusk when the males can be seen displaying to females, flying around them, wing-clapping and making their distinctive 'churring' calls. Where do nightjars live?
Their cryptic, grey-brown, mottled, streaked and barred plumage provides ideal camouflage in the daytime. They can be found in parts of southern Scotland, Wales and England during the summer months.
The nocturnal nightjar is one of our strangest birds.
They have broad heads and very short bills, but wide mouths, helping them to catch moths in flight.